Waiting to inhale : cannabis legalization and the fight for racial justice - Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah
"Tells the stories of those who suffered during the worst social and political failure in the continent's history-the War on Drugs-and what we can do to right the wrongs of the past"--
Breathe Act - Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives
"We are rising up against all the ways that the criminal-legal system has harmed and failed to protect Black communities. The current moment requires a solution that fundamentally shifts how we envision community-care and invest in our society. History is clear that we cannot achieve genuine safety and liberation until we abandon police prisons and all punishment paradigms."
Biden Faces Pressure to Take Action on Racial Justice Issues - Marty Johnson and Morgan Chalfant
"President-elect Joe Biden will be under tremendous pressure to take action toward greater racial justice throughout the country on Day 1 of his presidency following massive nationwide protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor along with other incidents of violence against Black Americans."
Changing the Law to Change Policing: First Steps - Barry Friedman Brandon L. Garrett Rachel Harmon Christy E. Lopez et al.
"Recent events have brought to the fore longstanding concerns about the nature of policing in the United States and how it undermines racial equity. As an institution policing needs significant reconsideration. It is time to rethink the structure and governance of policing. It is also time to engage in a deeper conversation about the meaning of public safety. In the meantime however the following is a list of urgently-needed reforms compiled by a small group of law school faculty each of whom runs or is associated with an academic center devoted to policing and the criminal justice system. The reforms are not intended as an entire agenda for what ought to happen around policing or what American policing should look like. Rather they offer immediate concrete steps federal state and local governments can take to address enduring problems in policing. The authors are scholars who are also deeply involved in the daily practice of policing and included among them are the Reporters for the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law: Policing which works with advisers from across the ideological spectrum in drafting high-level principles to govern policing though the recommendations here go beyond the scope of the ALI project."
Unpacking a Decade of Appellate Decisions on Qualified Immunity - Alexander A. Reinert
"Prompted by several recent high-visibility killings by police officers the U.S. civil rights enforcement regime is the subject of focused attention at the national state and local levels."
Officers And Paramedics Are Charged In Elijah McClain's 2019 Death In Colorado - Associated Press
"Colorado's attorney general said Wednesday that a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain a Black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with a powerful sedative two years ago in suburban Denver."
ABA Joins with Dozens of Law Schools to Address Issues in Police Practices - Patricia Lee Refo
"America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. Throughout our history we have not always lived up to that self-evident truth. This has been especially true in our criminal justice system."
4 Ex-Cops Indicted on US Civil Rights Charges in Floyd Death - Amy Forliti and Michael Balsamo
"A federal grand jury has indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd's arrest and death accusing them of willfully violating the Black man's constitutional rights as he was restrained face-down on the pavement and gasping for air."
"For the first time in four years the estimated number of violent crimes in the nation increased when compared with the previous year's statistics according to FBI figures released today."
Three Georgia Men Charged with Federal Hate Crimes and Attempted Kidnapping in Connection with the Death of Ahmaud Arbery - United States Department of Justice
"Three Georgia men were indicted today by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Georgia and charged with hate crimes and the attempted kidnapping of Ahmaud Arbery. The indictment also charges two of the men with separate counts of using firearms during that crime of violence."
Using Video to Advocate For Parole Clemency And Sentencing Mitigation: Legal Video Advocacy - WITNESS Media Labs
"To help reduce this massive prison population and to promote human dignity and growth over punishment and retribution WITNESS is supporting advocates lawyers and incarcerated individuals in using video for sentencing mitigation and to advocate for decarceration through clemency and parole."
"Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative a human rights organization in Montgomery Alabama. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing exonerating innocent death row prisoners confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults."
"The Innocence Project founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice."
Legal Education Police Practices Consortium - American Bar Association
"The ABA Legal Education Police Practices Consortium aims to contribute to the national effort examining and addressing legal issues in policing and public safety including conduct oversight and the evolving nature of police work. The Consortium will leverage the ABA's expertise and that of participating ABA accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement better police practices throughout the United States. "
Every Step You Take: Police's Search for Armed Robber Makes New Law on Privacy of Geolocation Information - Jayce Born Amanda Claire Hoover Ronald D. Lee and Suneeta Hazra
"An armed robber walks into seven stores in Indiana and Michigan during a three-week crime spree in October 2017. Investigators get from the robber's phone carrier real-time cell site location information (CSLI) that show his phone's pings to nearby cell towers which help the investigators geolocate their suspect. The robber gets arrested and charged in federal court with five counts of robbery and several accompanying weapons charges. And the rest of the world gets an opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on one of the many questions that the Supreme Court left open when it decided its seminal privacy-related opinion Carpenter v. United States 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018)."